The Ohio Psychiatric Association was organized by a small group of psychiatrists attending the annual Ohio State Medical Association meeting in Cleveland in the spring of 1950. The leader of the group was Dr. Thomas A. Ratliff; others known to be present were Dr. Calvin Baker, then commissioner of the Ohio Department of Mental Hygiene, and Dr. Charles L. Anderson.
The organizing group, after polling Ohio psychiatrists regarding their interest in having a state association, applied to the Council of the American Psychiatric Association. The Association then held its first official meeting in 1951 in Cincinnati, in conjunction with the annual meeting of the OSMA. Dr. Daniel Blain, then medical director of the APA, announced that the APA Council had officially approved the Association as a District Branch. It was the third to be established; and the first to cover a single state. Dr. Ratliff, of Cincinnati, was elected the first president.Read more